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Re: More than honey

I had to shut if off and walk away for awhile after watching the bees get nuked by the fungicide in California. It doesn't cast commercial beekeeping in a very good light. The bee operation highlighted shows the downside for sure. Bees not allowed to keep any honey. No wonder they are so sick.

Re: More than honey

Re: More than honey

Just krispy..The comments i've heard are that many felt that movie didn't cast a good impression on beekeeping in the US in good light..slightly bias many felt...Having seen it several times myself i'd tend to agree..that being said time and content is limited to some degree and i enjoyed the movie overall.

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by rjmeyer

Just krispy..The comments i've heard are that many felt that movie didn't cast a good impression on beekeeping in the US in good light..slightly bias many felt...Having seen it several times myself i'd tend to agree..that being said time and content is limited to some degree and i enjoyed the movie overall.

I have never seen the Almond pollination first hand. Whish part is biased? The distance travelled? The monoculture they feed on? The spraying? The way they extract the Honey? They way they do splits? They way and what of feeding?
As Miller willingly admits "driven by greed or fear"

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by Just Krispy

I had to shut if off and walk away for awhile after watching the bees get nuked by the fungicide in California. It doesn't cast commercial beekeeping in a very good light. The bee operation highlighted shows the downside for sure. Bees not allowed to keep any honey. No wonder they are so sick.

Re: More than honey

Max2..in my opinion based on my observations watching the movie..you have a director showing beautiful snow dotted mountains in the Alps with fresh spring bloom...here a monoculture of Almond crop, a third generation older gentleman individualy caring for a handful of colonies..here tens of thousands of hives being fork lifted and trucked cross country..there one man solomely burning a hive with foul brood..here scooping pails of bees and running mechanized equipment over hives to conduct splits like were dividing up M&M's...i understand it is depicting two extreames but seemed to me Europe good America Bad..maybe im wrong but i'm not the only one who made this comment and some from non beekeeping people who watched the movie.

Re: More than honey

I watched this film last night. The cinematography was great, and the in hive shots are better than any other I have seen. With that being said the “story line” was disjointed and did not carry the viewer through the film. No one subject was covered enough to create a complete package of information, the narrator’s story about his grandfather didn’t even seem to wrap up well. In short the “documentary” was fun to watch, but there is no concise story or message gained from the film.

I did enjoy seeing the Miller’s division line, I have been curious after reading about it in the “Beekeepers Lament”.

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by rjmeyer

Max2..in my opinion based on my observations watching the movie..you have a director showing beautiful snow dotted mountains in the Alps with fresh spring bloom...here a monoculture of Almond crop, a third generation older gentleman individualy caring for a handful of colonies..here tens of thousands of hives being fork lifted and trucked cross country..there one man solomely burning a hive with foul brood..here scooping pails of bees and running mechanized equipment over hives to conduct splits like were dividing up M&M's...i understand it is depicting two extreames but seemed to me Europe good America Bad..maybe im wrong but i'm not the only one who made this comment and some from non beekeeping people who watched the movie.

True!

I have worked and visited about 1/2 of the US states and I'm no expert on the US economy. I have also worked in Switzerland for more than 20 years.
Somehow Switzerland's manufacturing has survived and much of the rural lifestyle has too - farmers markets are doing well and there are lots of direct sales from farmers and small beekeepers are the norm.
When I grew up Almonds where only available at Christmas time - now, thanks to the Californian Almond industry, Almonds are cheap all year round. But is life better? Are the Miller's really part of a sustainable future?
I'm pretty well retired from my business these days and operate a small, mixed farm - and pondering where it all will end?

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by max2

- and pondering where it all will end?

Where it will end? It won't end. It will morph into something else, something in some way different from the way things are now just as farming in Iowa now is different from farming as it was when my Grandfather farmed there.

The Miller's are part of an organic system, a complex organism. Not simple look at what they do and why they do it is adequate. It could be put into simple words, but one's understanding would be inadequate.

W/ modern GPS technology and tractor lights why can't the spraying be done at night? In wide open fields of thousands of acres computer guided tractors plough plant, and harvest while someone rides in the tractor to make sure things operate the way they are supposed to. Seems like almonds could be sprayed that way too. But I am sure I don't know enough to fully understand why it isn't.

Re: More than honey

you could make the exact same movie with almost any of our farmed animals. the difference between keeping bees\animals on a hobby scale compared to actually making a living from them is huge. you only need to look at poultry, beef, pigs and the fishing industry to see that.

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by rjmeyer

...i understand it is depicting two extreames but seemed to me Europe good America Bad...

This was the one of the themes I saw throughout the film. To some extent there was a negative sense on any industrial production, from the story about the grandfathers preserves company going under, to package bees and queens with the the apex being the almond pollination industry.

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by Just Krispy

Sub titles can be turned on Netflix

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

How?

I watched it on an ipad and there was a little icon on the top right corner that looked like notes. When you pushed it the subtitle options came up. Watching it on the computer, the little note icon is on the bottom right next to the button that makes it go full screen.

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by RiodeLobo

This was the one of the themes I saw throughout the film.

We see what we see, not necessarily what the film makers intended. I thought it was a pretty even handed display of beekeeping in a number of different parts of the World. It depicted what it is like to be a commercial migratory beekeeper in a nonjudgemental manner. Mr. Miller expressed his circumstances and conflicts quite well. What is a beekeeper to do when growers spray fungicides while bees are in the trees?

Re: More than honey

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

We see what we see, not necessarily what the film makers intended.

Quite true, I don't think the content was objectionable just the editing, as it seemed to contrast the rural small scale (European) and commercial (American) beekeeping system in a biased way. However that my have been my bias as many honeybee documentaries I have seen seem to take an anti-industrial tilt. I am not saying it was not a good film, I really enjoyed the cinematography, particularly the flight and in the hive sequences. The section in Australia was very interesting as well.